BP shares jump after feared US hedge fund Elliott takes stake
Shares in BP jumped 7% on Monday after it emerged that the activist investor Elliott Investment Management had taken a stake in the UK oil company.The stock rose as investors bet that Elliott, a feared New York hedge fund known for its attempts to shake up listed companies, would push for an overhaul of BP’s strategy, along with a revamp of its board.Elliott’s arrival could lead to the departure of BP’s chair, Helge Lund, and put pressure on its management to shift back more decisively towards fossil fuels, analysts said.Shares in the 120-year-old company rose by more than 8% in early trading on Monday, before closing up about 7% at 465p, the highest since last July and helping the FTSE 100 to hit a new record high.Elliott, led by the billionaire Paul Singer, has amassed a significant holding in the British energy company, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.
The fund, best known for chasing the Argentinian government for debts for more than decade, has pushed for change at several large UK companies, including the drugmaker GSK, the energy company SSE and the housebuilder Taylor Wimpey.BP’s shares have underperformed rivals after a series of missteps in recent years, including the dismissal of the former chief executive Bernard Looney for “serious misconduct” in September 2023, after he failed to disclose personal relationships with colleagues to the board.Many investors are unhappy with the company’s direction, since Looney embarked on a plan to slash its oil and gas production and spend billions on renewable energy projects instead.While BP has since rowed back from its full green ambitions under the new chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, for some, the road ahead looks uncertain.BP, which is valued at £75bn and is one of the largest companies on the FTSE 100, has even been touted as a potential takeover target as its share price has fallen by a quarter over the past two years.
“For BP, given the circumstances around the changes to its previous chief executive, we think any activist would call for a change in the chairperson at the very least,” said the RBC Europe analyst Biraj Borkhataria,Analysts at Jefferies also believe that any board changes could include the departure of Lund,The Norwegian, who was at the centre of a high-profile storm over a £25m package at BG Group in 2015, has led BP’s board since 2019,Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionJefferies analysts said: “Given Elliott’s track record, we believe its involvement could lead to board changes, portfolio rationalisation (with a focus on exiting low carbon assets and certain retail regions), and capital expenditure prioritisation on upstream projects,” such as oil and gas exploration and drilling,BP will release its annual financial results on Tuesday, after setting out plans recently to cut thousands of jobs globally, equal to 5% of its workforce, to save billions in costs and appease shareholders.
Auchincloss is expected to set out a new strategy to tackle the company’s falling value, hefty debts and investors’ scepticism of its green energy aspirations at a capital markets day at the end of this month.Richard Hunter, the head of markets at the investment platform Interactive Investor, said: “The shares have drifted by around 3% over the last year, in contrast to a gain of some 6% for rival Shell over that period, and it remains to be seen whether this latest speculation will provide a shot in the arm for what has been a relatively disappointing period for the group of late.”
Labour peer calls for ‘arrogant’ attorney general to be sacked
An influential Labour peer has called the attorney general Richard Hermer an “arrogant, progressive fool” and called for him to be sacked, exposing a split at the heart of Keir Starmer’s government.Maurice Glasman, the founder of the Blue Labour group that has risen in prominence since Donald Trump’s victory in the US election, urged the prime minister to replace his attorney general.In an interview with the New Statesman, Glasman said of Hermer: “He’s got to go. He is the absolute archetype of an arrogant, progressive fool who thinks that law is a replacement for politics … They talk about the rule of law but what they want is a rule of lawyers.” He also called Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, a “drone for the Treasury”
Labour was told about ‘vile’ WhatsApp group more than a year ago, says councillor
Labour was warned more than a year ago about a “vile” WhatsApp group involving two of the party’s MPs, local councillors and a series of offensive messages, the Guardian has been told.It came as a cycling campaigner said he was “profoundly distressed” to learn that one of the MPs, Andrew Gwynne, joked about him being “mown down” by a lorry.Gwynne was sacked as a health minister on Saturday and suspended by Labour after he was accused of posting messages containing racist and sexist comments. A second Labour MP, Oliver Ryan, was suspended on Monday after he was revealed to be a member of the group, which also featured misogynistic and classist messages.The Guardian has seen previously undisclosed posts in the WhatsApp group, called Trigger Me Timbers, and can reveal that:Gwynne, the MP for Gorton and Denton, described a constituent as “an illiterate retard” and a fellow councillor as a “fat middle aged useless thicket”
Local elections delayed is democracy denied | Letters
The cancellation of local elections (Some councillors in England could stay for more than extra year under shake-up plans, 5 February) means that the government and those council leaders who will gain most from the planned reorganisation will not have to face voters to justify the cost to them.The proposed mergers of district councils and splitting up of county councils to form new unitary councils was examined in a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report commissioned by the County Councils Network in 2020. This showed that all the options to create multiple unitary councils were extremely expensive and disruptive.PwC predicted that the loss of economies of scale at county level would cost billions across the country. With local government already on its knees, spending a fortune on a reorganisation to create a more costly alternative is the last thing we need
Benefits system should protect, not punish, vulnerable people | Letters
Frances Ryan underestimates the effect of repeated attacks on benefits claimants and the damage that the potential changes being floated would unleash (As Labour touts more brutal cuts to benefits, how is this different from life under the Tories?, 5 February). As a mental health clinician, I cannot emphasise enough how many relapses have been triggered by the relentless media drumbeat about “cracking down” on benefits. This is not just political rhetoric; it lodges in the psyche, feeding precarity and self-doubt.When the government frames itself as the defender of the public purse at the expense of “fraudulent” claimants, it makes nearly all claimants feel like frauds. To combine this with the terrifying reality of what these speculative reforms could mean – sanctions for those too unwell to comply with back-to-work schemes, and the appalling prospect of removing or gutting the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) group that overwhelmingly consists of people at substantial risk of mental collapse – is unconscionable
Burnley MP Oliver Ryan suspended by Labour over messages on WhatsApp group
The Labour MP Oliver Ryan has been suspended by the party over his membership and comments on a WhatsApp group that featured offensive messages, including alleged racism and sexism.The party took action against the Burnley MP after the emergence of details about the Trigger Me Timbers group, mainly involving a group of councillors and party activists in Greater Manchester.A Labour spokesperson said: “As part of our WhatsApp group investigation, Oliver Ryan has been administratively suspended as a member of the Labour party.“As soon as this group was brought to our attention, a thorough investigation was immediately launched and this process is ongoing in line with the Labour party’s rules and procedures. Swift action will always be taken where individuals are found to have breached the high standards expected of them as Labour party members
Watchdog recommends £2,500 pay rise for UK MPs
MPs should receive a £2,500 pay rise for the next financial year, an increase of 2.8%, the body that recommends their salaries has said.If the pay rise proposed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) goes through, it would raise a backbench MP’s salary from £91,346 to just under £94,000.The year-on-year figure for consumer price index inflation in December was 2.5%, but it is expected to increase as the year goes on
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